A single No Go-Show: the Berlin Fashion Week

At least two mails arrived in the past days, asking, what our show-recommendations would be and even more what the so-called ‘no go-shows’ were, to be aware of the risk of going there. Therefore they were: painfully missed.

Too be honest, we simply had no munition to shoot. The ‘go-shows’, a listing of three worth-seeing shows, would have been easy to write – Julian Zigerli, Mads Dinesen, Sopopular – but all the ‘no go-shows’ just would have been too much to write. Who should we have picked as our top 3? Which show would be the one that you absolutely must not attend?

The honest answer would be: next to the three ‘go-shows’ there is nothing interesting happening at the Berlin fashion week. A stroll threw the next H&M offers a better overview about current trends and fashion – and sometimes even better tailoring. That is the harsh reality.

At the Berlin fashion week, the amount of unambitious labels, who are not even trying to create the big picture, is big. Hoodies are presented, sloppy fitting suits – worst case ‘with its own turn’, and bad evening dresses for a glamorous new years-eve in Eppen-, Zehlen-, Düssel- or something german- dorf.

Can you expect more from fashion that is presented on the runway? We think so – and are jealously looking at the more and more powerful London Collections: Men, the young British menswear-design week, or at Copenhagen. Both fashion weeks are fine with less money, less glamour and less media-presence – and still they are presenting: far better fashion.

While in Germany tom-foolish corporate fashion designers are creating a collection of evening gowns with their fat fingers, to have something, that the boulevard-press will report about and to which every little reality-TV-star can drop a little bon mot in front of the cameras of local TV-stations – for whom fashion, next to fashion week, means Heidi Klum and the drama of offspring-models -, trends are actually set abroad.

Berlin, with its reputation of being hip, an urban melting pot, an indicator of current zeitgeist, of a new place, creative, also being wild, apparently is not able coping with that, and is even putting anyone who ever said something good about the trend-appeal of this city, in the shining place of being a stupid lier.

Therefore we could only discourage our international guests to visit the shows at the Brandenburger Tor. We just set a date to meet for fashion week in Copenhagen, in two weeks – and went to bed. It shall end soon.

We would advise the three labels on top – the big German brands Hugo Boss, Escada and Strenese did it first – to leave Berlin: Julian Zigerli already made the first step to Milan, Mads Dinesen probably could show just as well in his home-country Denmark as he is doing here and Daniel Blechmann from Sopopular is talking about his influence of London anyway. If these three should follow our unassuming advice, we are going to be able to release our ‘no go-shows’ list for the next fashion week. Then we would say: the whole fashion week is a no go-area. And we can all stay home.